Daniel, please ignore me if these are points the MAC has already covered,
I haven't had time to absorb all the fine detail. However, I haven't seen
any comment on them elsewhere. If you find some of the statements rather
coarse-grained, it is the hope that someone can come up with an subtle
economic rebuttal of the high cost of enabling participatory democracy.

Best,

MM

Daniel Kaplan wrote:

A 21:34 28/04/99 +0200, Mark Measday a écrit
:>>>>However the economics looks dangerous. ICANN would be promising
to sendmail and authenticate theoretically every internet user in the world,that's going to require staff, databases and a mailing operation
(unless anefficient internet alternative can be found or membership can be
subsumedinto another existing entity like ISOC). That's probably ten dollars
a headby the time you have a few thousand members. Surely it would becost-efficient to charge a flat fee?<<<<

Well, I'm not so sure. Speaking of myself (but being a member of
the MAC),I believe:- We don't anticipate that many people to join AL membership. We'll
behappy if we're wrong. If we're right, though, total cost will be
verybearable, even if cost-per-member is high.

If they are going to elect nine at-large directors, there need to be a
sufficient number to counterbalance the business and professional interest
of the others. Otherwise it's a trade association (and there are plenty
who want it to be that). It wouldn't be possible (even fair) to continue
with that number of at-large directors, or to give them any effective power,
if their constituency is only a few hundreds.

- Since the membership fee will have to be low
in any case (at least we'resure to have consensus on that in the MAC), collecting it might
add anotherburden, and probably cost more than it brings. In many countries
peopledon't have credit card, and anyway we can't make credit cards mandatoryeven where they are heavily used. Other means of collecting money,
invarious currencies of course, will be extremely costly.

However, I suddenly wonder: Why haven't we contemplated chargingorganizations and not individuals? Is it a silly idea?

Charge organizations a multiple of the individual fee according to the
stated number of employees in their annual accounts? Presumably charges
should also apply to professional members and not only the at-large membership?

>>>>And the question of demographic pricing is incorrect.Internet users in deprived areas are the rich elites. They are well
able tobear the fees. Flat fees would be much simpler to operate. Also
on-lineregistration as below.<<<<

Thay are also students, teachers and researchers in public universities,civil servants... Who are often reasonably well-off for their country,
butvery poor for developed countries' standards. In Vietnam, if you
makeU.S.$200 a month, you're a wealthy person.

Their organizations would join, as those people would be ill-advised in
many cases to join as individual members? ICANN's job is in its name, if
it is interested in flattening global wealth differences, it should ask
for a different mandate?

>>>>How will this reflect global diversity? Either members join as they
wish(i.e. approximately North America 45% Europe 30% AP 20% LA 5% Africa
1% orwill you be prioritising on price?<<<<

As they wish. There should be no procedure for accepting or rejectingmembers, except by verifying that they provide the necessary information.However, ICANN should develop a program in order to reach out to
theInternet community, giving priority to areas where users are least
informedand likely to join spontaneously.

>>>>Why not assume that most people are honest and allow on-line registrationto stand, with publication of the registrants? Then details could
berequired if challenged, conceivably paid for by the challenger.
This shouldminimise the cost of registration, voter fraud and allow quick and
easyon-line registration.<<<<

We discussed that at length in the MAC, of course. I supported offlineverification (maybe an even more stringent one, such as require
a copy ofsome official ID, which would not be checked by ICANN but just kept
instore for whenever it might need it) because I believe the value
oflitigation against AL elections for some organization who have a
stake indelaying reforms is so high, that we are sure they will do it unless
ICANNcan show it has taken reasonable steps to verify the validity of
itsmembership (sorry for the non-lawyer language).

In my country of birth and conceivably other social outliers, there is
little formal requirement to have official ID, but you exist nonetheless,
so you may be down to birth certificates even in Europe. I dread to think
of the verification processes for Kurdistan and Kosovo.

Who apart from known jokesters is going to bother to falsify and sue
on this matter anyway? If it is other members of the organization, could
not membership state an obligation not to sue others for actions within
the ambit of the ICANN? (ok, naive statement)

Presumably the recent european data laws need to be taken into accountalso. There would be specific other restrictions on the use of dataconcerning EU citizens.<<<<

Not many, I believe. Access and correction rights on his/her data
by amember, which I don't anticipate to be a problem.

Isn't that very similar to the problem of correct whois data (to take a
topical exemplar) which detains so many fine minds and some much administrative
processing effort at NSI? A slightly exaggerated parallel, but not different
in kind, merely scope. And presumably the exclusions for use of EU addresses
for resale etc would complicate any database reuse more than the exclusions
currently drafted.